Bless Me Again, Father

by Neil Boyd

  I picked the slim red volume from my shelf and handed it to the Bishop who immediately turned to go as if his mission was accomplished.

  Fortunately, Julie said, ‘I heard your sermon yesterday, my Lord. It was lovely. May I have your blessing?’ She knelt down before him, bowing her head.

  ‘Of course, my dear.’ He intoned, in his sing-song voice, ‘Sit nomen Domini benedictum.’

  I responded with, ‘Ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum.’

  The Bishop concluded the blessing but instead of talking to the young couple as he could so easily have done, he apologized for interrupting us and left.

  I was disappointed. Far from probing Frank’s story, as far as I could tell he hadn’t even looked at him.

  When I mentioned it to Fr Duddleswell, he said, reasonably, that the Bishop was our guest and could hardly be expected to solve all the problems of the parish. He had done more than enough already.

  All the same, I thought, why did he stay on an extra day just for that?

  At supper, the Bishop was not his usual buoyant self. I told myself, He’s ill, that’s why he didn’t help me.

  ‘I am afraid I have a shocking shock for you two Fathers,’ he said.

  Our ears pricked at that.

  ‘It is about Frank Byrne.’

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘He has never been married before.’

  How could the Bishop be so sure when he hadn’t spoken to Frank? Had he had his ear to the door? If so, what had he learned that had escaped all my investigations?

  Fr Duddleswell’s reaction was predictable. He exploded with, ‘Deo bloody gratias.’

  ‘Wait, Father Charles, till you hear the rest.’ He switched to Creole. ‘No ebery ting what’ got sugar a sweet.’ He smiled apologetically for his strange talk. ‘You see, though Frank Byrne is not married, that is about the only truth he has told you.’

  ‘The only thing I wanted to know,’ Fr Duddleswell said.

  The Bishop shook his head. ‘He says he is an agnostic and has never been baptized. In fact, he is a Catholic.’

  ‘A Catholic?’ I gasped. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘But how—?’

  He cut across me. ‘Alas, Father Neil, you are young and clever and do not know how to solve riddles.’ He took my forearm in a fatherly grip. ‘You see, when I asked you for the Jesus Psalter, I was watching that young man out of the corner of my eye.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He bowed his head. Ever so slightly but he bowed it.’

  ‘He did?’ I said, trying to make sure what he was getting at.

  ‘I relied not on reason but on reflexes. You could ask that fellow a thousand questions and he would give you a thousand evasions, half-truths and the occasional lie. But mention the holy name of Jesus and his head speaks the truth in spite of him.’

  Three Catholic heads bowed instinctively at the name of ‘Jesus’ to prove the Bishop’s point.

  Fr Duddleswell was puzzled. ‘But why all this subterfuge? Unless the lad has been married and you say he has not.’

  ‘Ah, Father Charles, I believe he was evasive because he does not wish you to know that his name is not Mr Francis Byrne.’

  ‘I saw his birth-certificate,’ I said. ‘Is that a forgery?’

  ‘Not at all,’ the Bishop said, mystifying me more. ‘You see, the young gentleman’s name is Father Byrne.’

  ‘A priest?’ Fr Duddleswell and I exclaimed together.

  ‘I am not one hundred per cent sure, but I fear so, my dear Fathers. When I gave the young lady my episcopal blessing, Father Neil here said, Ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum. The young lady’s lips did not move because, as a lay person, she did not know such a response. But the young man, he began to formulate the words “ex hoc nunc”. He did not speak them but he could not stop himself mouthing them.’

  Fr Duddleswell was muttering, ‘If the lad is a priest, everything falls into place.’

  In a flash, I realized this was true. It explained why Frank could swear with an easy conscience even before a Commissioner for Oaths that he wasn’t married. Why he was at twenty-nine still single. Why he was learned and yet not qualified for anything in particular. Why his Newcastle accent had been ironed out—six years in the seminary had done that. Why he hadn’t any money. Why he wouldn’t go near a church unless he had to. Why he didn’t ask his father to write his letter of freedom. Why he wanted Julie to marry him in the Registry Office. Why he had such good insights into religion. Why, when it came to it, he knew how to get round all the Church’s legislation about proving freedom to marry: he only had to say he had never been baptized.

  The whole puzzle only needed that one piece which the Bishop had provided and it was solved.

  Though the Bishop looked at us both modestly, he was evidently not displeased at the consternation he had caused.

  ‘Father Byrne’s most straightforward truth that he was not married,’ he said, ‘was the greatest lie of all. It wasn’t cricket, Fathers, was it? Ah, the human animal, how strange.’

  ‘So that’s why you didn’t stay with the couple any longer, Father,’ I said.

  ‘Was there any need?’ the Bishop replied.

  Whereas my reaction was of numbed horror, Fr Duddleswell’s wrath overflowed.

  ‘Imagine a priest coming in here cool as a breeze and deceiving a fellow priest. Worse, deceiving such a darlin’ girl as our Julie.’

  He had reason to be livid. A priest was actually intending to go through a mockery of a marriage with one of his dearest parishioners in his very own church and bring illegitimate children into the world. Since Julie was bound to find out in time, as a Catholic she would be faced with the choice of breaking up her home by a civil divorce or living like a nun in marriage.

  As to Frank Byrne himself, Fr Duddleswell didn’t do badly for one who claimed to be rendered speechless.

  The Bishop took a kinder view. ‘Ah, Father Charles, the lad is probably lonely and hot in the loins, nothing more. Not vile and wicked. Which of us at his age would not prefer a woman’s tender arms round his neck to a starched clerical collar?’

  Fr Duddleswell’s response was a breathless grunt.

  ‘Pity,’ the Bishop went on, ‘the lonesome thoughts of a young man’s heart.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Even at my age, Father Charles, I can scarcely see a young couple holding hands and not feel the cold wind of loneliness blow across my heart.’ Once more that sad refrain, so full of tenderness and understanding: ‘Ah, the human animal, how strange.’

  Fr Duddleswell excused himself for a few minutes. He returned, groaning, ‘I will be talking to St Peter before the night is out, that’s for sure.’

  He had first checked the Catholic Directory; there was a priest named Francis Aloysius Byrne in Hexham and Newcastle.

  He had then phoned the Chancellor of that diocese, a fellow student of his in the old days. He had told Fr Duddleswell in confidence that a priest of that name, aged twenty-nine, had simply walked out of the parish of St Anne’s in Corbly three months before and had not been heard of since.

  ‘Father Neil,’ Fr Duddleswell said, taking it out on me, ‘your head must be as empty as a balloon. Did I not tell you to watch that sly one narrowly?’

  Before I could defend myself, the Bishop stepped in.

  ‘Father Charles, please. How long has Father Neil been ordained? A year and a half. His innocence is beautiful.’ He tapped his massive chest in repentance. ‘I was ordained thirty-three years ago. Who but battle-scarred warriors like you and me could suspect a fellow priest of such unpriestly behaviour?’

  I could have knelt and kissed the feet I had first seen poking out of his bedroom early one morning.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Fr Duddleswell said, relaxing. ‘You have my word, lad, I will not tell a soul of the mess you have landed us in. But,’ he sighed, ‘what are we to do now?’

  For the rest of the meal we gave our minds to that
.

  From then on, things moved very fast. It was still only 7.45 when I rang the Wilson’s doorbell. Fortunately, Mr Wilson, a non-Catholic whom I had never met, was at the pub and Julie was upstairs typing.

  I explained quietly to Mrs Wilson that her worst fears had been only too well founded. She heard me out in silence and shed a few tears, whether from anger or relief it wasn’t easy to judge.

  ‘What about Julie?’ I asked.

  ‘She doesn’t love this … Byrne,’ she said firmly.

  I didn’t want to start that argument again. ‘She thinks she does.’

  ‘No, Father. She didn’t go with him to the cinema tonight.’

  ‘And she didn’t have important typing to do?’

  Mrs Wilson shook her head. ‘I think she’s seen the light. That man was putting all sorts of pressure on her and finally she’s had enough. Especially as two or three days ago she received a letter from David.’

  ‘Are they patching it up?’

  ‘Julie’s a proud girl, Father, but I think she might, she just might.’

  ‘Would you like me to have a word with her?

  Mrs Wilson shook her head. ‘What’s a mother for?’ she said, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘A great burden has been lifted, Father.’

  From the Wilson’s place, I phoned Frank Byrne. I asked him to come round to the presbytery at once. Something important had cropped up. He sounded apprehensive but agreed.

  I raced home and beat Frank to it by only three minutes. I opened the door to him, led him into Fr Duddleswell’s study and introduced them.

  Frank sat there, white-faced, teeth clenched, his hands twitching nervously as Fr Duddleswell made it plain, though in the kindest possible way, that the game was up.

  ‘I wasn’t breaking the law, was I?’ Frank said angrily.

  ‘The law of the land, no.’

  I admired Fr Duddleswell’s technique. He told Frank that nobody need ever know of this little aberration. Not his parents, nor his Bishop, nor his priest colleagues.

  ‘Often priests and marrieds, too, disappear for a few days or weeks to think a problem through. When they return, as most times they do, they are chastened and strengthened by the experience.’

  It was done with such gentleness and sensitivity, I could almost feel the presence of Bishop Martinez in the room.

  ‘If I go back now,’ Frank said, ‘I’ll probably only opt out in a year’s or ten years’ time. Or even later. Perhaps too late.’

  ‘It could be so, Father,’ Fr Duddleswell said, addressing him by his title for the first time. It was finely judged. Frank’s face crumpled and he was on the verge of breaking up altogether.

  ‘You see, Father, you were acting out of character in deceiving Julie. Once she discovered you were a priest …’

  ‘I’m a skunk,’ Frank said.

  ‘No, no, no. You were lonely, that is all.’

  ‘Does she know?’

  I said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes, Frank.’

  He seemed genuinely relieved. ‘I can’t guarantee to go back to my diocese,’ he said.

  ‘Not at this moment,’ Fr Duddleswell said. ‘But please don’t try to see Julie again. Not even to say sorry.’

  ‘You have my word. But as to the future …’

  ‘Pray about it, Father. Father Neil, the Bishop and meself will pray for you, too. I do not expect you to make your confession at present, but Jesus is always waiting in the tabernacle to hear you out. My guess is you will decide to go back.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Oh, indeed,’ Fr Duddleswell said. ‘Why were you so keen on Julie, tell me that? Because she is pretty? Of course. But chiefly because she is a good Catholic lass. In wanting her, you were showing where your real treasure is. After all, think of the trouble you would have saved yourself if you had fallen for a Protestant.’

  Frank shook our hands, muttered something I could not catch and stumbled out into the night.

  ‘Now, Father Neil,’ Fr Duddleswell said, ‘I have an important matter to attend to.’

  I retired to my room. As I was reciting my office, I could hear his typewriter clacking away below.

  The truth came to me with brutal suddenness. The most terrible aspect of this whole affair had not yet appeared. The more I thought about it, the more half-expressed suspicions broke surface. It made me almost sick with unhappiness.

  I made a phone call, then another and waited half an hour for the call to be returned. I wrote down systematically all the things that were bothering me.

  By the time I had finished, the Bishop was almost snoring a hole in the floor and Fr Duddleswell had gone to bed less noisily for the night.

  As for me, I knew I would be lucky to get even two hours’ sleep.

  Next morning, I celebrated the early Mass in a daze and had to wait until 8.45 for a word with Fr Duddleswell. He was unvesting in the sacristy.

  ‘I’ve got to speak to you, Father. It’s urgent.’

  He waved me aside. ‘Later, lad. Have you forgotten the Bishop is leaving at nine o’clock? I have one or two things to do for him.’

  He swept out of the sacristy and went to his study.

  I followed him and was just in time to see him stacking a bundle of fivers into a big brown envelope.

  ‘Isn’t he taking a cheque?’ I asked.

  ‘He has no British bank account. He wants it in cash.’

  The Bishop came downstairs, carrying his suitcase. ‘Has the cab arrived?’

  Fr Duddleswell called out to Mrs Pring who said the taxi had been ordered and was on its way.

  ‘Father,’ I said, ‘could I have a private—?’

  He checked me. ‘Father Neil, the Bishop is on the eve of departing. Would you be so kind as to leave us for a few moments?’

  I stood my ground and watched Fr Duddleswell hand the Bishop first the big brown envelope, then a white one.

  ‘In here, Bishop, is a letter of commendation to the next parish you visit.’

  He thanked the Bishop in the warmest possible terms for everything he had done for St Jude’s.

  ‘For Frank Byrne alone,’ he said, ‘Father Neil and meself will bless you for ever and ever.’

  I seconded him in that.

  We heard the taxi chugging at the door. While the Bishop was kissing Mrs Pring’s hand in gratitude, I tugged on Fr Duddleswell’s sleeve.

  ‘What is it, Father Neil?’ he said sharply, out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘He is not a real Bishop,’ I whispered back.

  ‘The Bishop has a train to catch.’

  Only then did he grasp what I had said. He turned on me, his eyes blazing.

  ‘Are you astray of your wits, lad?’

  He pushed me out of the way as he escorted the Bishop to his taxi, thanked him again and waved him off.

  I reached the front door in time to receive a seraphic smile from that lovable brown face which I knew I would never see again.

  I joined Fr Duddleswell in the dining room as he sat down to breakfast.

  ‘We just said goodbye to the best con-man in the business.’

  ‘Father Neil,’ he said, munching irritably, ‘you nearly wrecked the Bishop’s departure, do you know that? Explain yourself, you numbskull.’

  I obliged.

  The Bishop, in defending me from Fr Duddleswell’s accusations of idiocy, said he had been ordained thirty-three years ago. He also claimed to have studied in Rome with Bishop O’Reilly.

  ‘But the diocesan year book says, Father, that Bishop O’Reilly was ordained in 1909, forty-two years ago. They can’t have been fellow-students.’

  ‘Father Neil,’ Fr Duddleswell sighed, ‘you are right about Bishop O’Reilly’s ordination. What you don’t realize is that he spent ten years in a parish before he went back to Rome for a degree in Canon Law. That is when he could have met Bishop Martinez.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, undeterred. ‘But listen. I took the c
all when he first phoned. He said he was staying with Sir James and Lady Celia Eaton.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I checked last night. I phoned Hatton House. The maid told me that her employers had been on vacation in the Bahamas for over a month.’

  ‘You probably spoke to Alicia.’

  ‘Alicia.’

  ‘Did the maid sound West Indian?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  That was Alicia. What was to stop Bishop Martinez staying at the home of the Eatons while they are on vacation?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I had to admit.

  ‘I am certain he did stay there. He wasn’t having you on, lad.’

  ‘There were all sorts of things,’ I went on, more falteringly by now, ‘that give him away. His bog-Latin, for instance. When I used a few Latin tags, he didn’t understand a word and said, Thank you very much. Yet, in Rome, lectures are in Latin, aren’t they?’

  ‘Not everywhere in Rome, Father Neil. In the missionary college, for example, most of the students come from the British Commonwealth and Empire. They all speak English, so the lectures are in English.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I said weakly.

  ‘Besides, he probably couldn’t understand your Latin accent. ’Tis appalling.’

  ‘Anyway, Father, to clinch things, I rang Fr Fleming at the Cathedral. He checked that while there are lots of Bishops called Martinez, there is no such diocese as Amlin in Jamaica.’

  ‘Who said there was? He never claimed to be Bishop of Jamaica. He is only an auxiliary Bishop, after all.’

  ‘And so,’ I gasped, ‘he could take his title from some place else.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Fr Duddleswell was smiling broadly at my confusion. ‘Amlin is probably a God-forsaken place in Turkey or thereabouts.’

  I was immeasurably consoled and furious at the same time. Furious at myself. But mostly at Fr Duddleswell. What had become of me? What had he made of me? A few months at St Jude’s and here I was calling the most lovable priest I had ever met a phoney.

  ‘So,’ I said, heaving a great sigh, ‘he was a real Bishop all along.’

  ‘No, Father Neil. He was an imposter.’

  ‘How dare you,’ I exploded. ‘How can you say such a wicked thing about that saintly man without a shred of evidence?’